It's a very collaborative piece, working with
Deborah Shaw from HRP and Mira Calix who's doing the sound
Phil Supple lights, Mike who's doing the flames themselves
bringing that team together, having discussions
and I guess I began with the shape of the installation that we did before
and explore that quite closely
flame has always been very evocative when used
and for me there's something of just that ephemeral nature of it really
the fact that it makes it more of a performance that happens
for that one moment and you have to be there to see it
So the challenge was to find the right torch, we call it
which is a bit like a candle but doesn't blow out so easily
and doesn't work off a solid wax
and we had to find something that burned really cleanly and would burn for four hours
and was the least risk to people who were going to be surrounded by them
so we looked around and eventually we found
a small company in north Spain making these
and they've been developed by French chemists and it fitted our bill perfectly
Flame is really interesting because it has two different meanings
it's part of the destruction, it's a destructive thing
but then it also symbolises hope and the human spirit
for the first time we're allowing people down into the moat
so they can witness the flames being lit
and the vista of the flames at low level as well as at height
but also to add in a piece by Mira Calix the sound artist
This piece is very romantic, it's very much an ode rather than a requiem
I wanted to give voice to the people who are involved in war
what is often called the war effort but who are not on the battlefield
and I remembered this poet called Mary Borden
and I alighted on this sonnet, which is one of ten sonnets to a soldier
I fragment or divide the poem, or the lyrics, into these languages
so that means the French, the Russian, the German, the Bavarian
and we just get little snippets of that
and it exists between these two walls, the inner and outer wall of the moat
we walk through it and sound is very ephemeral a bit like the flame
in that it's responding, everything is moving
I'm taking care of the 80 lighting volunteers and their flow within the installation
and how they light, how they respond to Tom's design
making sure that's elegant, beautiful and safe
and then the second half of my job is that I'm dealing with
our 40 T7 performers - these are the people who wear Mira Calix's sound design
and they move around the moat, so I'm choreographing their movement as well
some people in the audience might want more from us as movers
and some people might want less and so I want it to be really responsive and in the moment
and I want it to be really quite simple in a way
something that's really beautiful, and you almost don't notice
So my job with the lighting design is to create a context for the work
almost a backdrop that gives us the Tower as a recognisable architecture behind the flame artwork
and gives us an emotional context also
it's about individual light sources, if you like
their relationship to other light sources and all of those individual stories
but also seeing how that can grow and develop
to form a wider, more collective action that is about
people coming together to remember
It means to me as Chief Yeoman Warder to be a great honour
to be at the centre of this installation
there's a form of excitement between the 37 Yeoman Warders
the fact that they've been asked to be part of this installation
and commemorate the sacrifice of all the soldiers
not only from Britain but the Commonwealth
I think when I did the original installation
I was very struck by the involvement of the whole of the Tower of London community
it is a real community of people who live here
and actually working with the Yeoman Warders has always been a real privilege
to their commitment to it
and I hope in a sense that this is giving back a bit to the Tower
there's multiple meanings in it so people can take whatever they want to out of it
whether they want to see it as representing the souls of the people who died
or whether it's about light in the darkness
which for me is Beyond the Deepening Shadow, that after the First World War
we need to bring light, and I guess in our current situation in the world
it's really important to contemplate now about how we keep peace.